Another early morning where I crammed in 30 minutes on the elliptical before running off to my all-day training. So I should have fresh legs (and hopefully no soreness or pain, but I’m taking a stash of ibuprofen just in case) for marching tomorrow, yay!

The training I took today was good and I learned a TON that I can hopefully put to good use. I’m struggling, though, with the idea of being a female scientist in a mostly male office who’s working on her “soft skills”. On the one hand, those soft skills are really important (and the lack thereof is one of the reasons many of my male colleagues have roadblocks in their careers). On the other, I have to struggle to not be pigeonholed now, and that will only get worse as people start to see me as “that lady on the management track” (even though I am on no such track).

My boss (who could have used this training himself, ahem) always pushes me to double down on the science side of my work, while still asking me to take on these softer management-y tasks. It feels like a mixed message. On the other hand, after being around for 10 years, I’m finally being included in the “science bros club” with its proposals and publications. So I just get to do both I guess, and be really busy.

UGH. I don’t know. Those are what my organization seems to value, because most of them are techie nerds who can’t do anything else, but it’s not what I want to pursue. For me, that’s going backward. (For me, specifically, in the context of what I want to do in my career, not for people in general.)

I enjoy some of it, but I worry that it’s sort of damaging my science creds at a time when I’ve finally got some. I don’t feel too bad though; at least in my org, I feel like I could make a bigger difference by being a good manager than by being a good science. It’s tricky.